Despite warnings not to swim through the storm surge, Johnny Lauder dove into the flooded streets of his neighborhood and began his half mile trek to his elderly mother’s house after she called for help during Hurricane Ian.
“It was a very rough swim, if you call it that, and I knew the water was coming up faster and faster,” Lauder said. “Who wouldn’t go for their mom?”
Prior to the storm, Lauder attempted to get his 84-year-old mother Karen to evacuated her home in Naples, Florida.
“She said, ‘You’d have to pull me out kicking and screaming,'” he told People.
Lauder, whose son lives in the same Naples community as his father and grandmother, rode out the storm with his two sons and his one son’s girlfriend.
As the storm battered Naples and the streets rapidly began to flood, everyone gathered in the attic.
While they escaped to higher ground Lauder, a former police officer and rescue diver, received a call from his mother who uses a wheelchair. The water was coming into her home.
“That’s when I knew I had to bounce,” Lauder told The Washington Post. “So I jumped out of the window and began wading through the water.”
“I was aware of the dangers any type of current could take me, I could be hit by debris, but my mom was there and I knew she didn’t have much time,” the 49-year-old told local news.
As he worked his way to his mother’s house he snapped selfies and sent them to his family to let them know he was okay.
During his journey he came across a kneeboard and a life jacket which he used to propel him the four blocks to his mother’s house.
“It was like an act of God when the kneeboard just floated in front of me,” he said. “There was nothing on the street and it just appeared, like, ‘Wow, okay, someone’s looking out for me.’ ”
After nearly an hour of working against the strong current he made it to his 84-year-old mother’s house.
When he got to her door he heard her screaming.
It was a sense of terror and relief at the same time,” he said, according to CBS News. “The terror was that I didn’t know if something was falling on her or if she was trapped and hurt. But the relief was knowing that there’s still air in her lungs.”
He peered into her window and spotted her struggling to stay afloat. The water was up to her chin.
‘She’s never been happier to see me.’
Lauder recognized signs of hypothermia and placed her on a high table where he wrapped her in dry sheets.
Her reaction when he returned with something to keep her warm was, “‘No, not those, those are my good sheets!'”
Then mother and son waited about three hours for the water to recede.
Once the storm surge receded enough, Lauder contacted one of his sons to help him bring Karen to safety. As Lauder and his son began to wheel Karen through the water, they noticed a neighbor who was in need of help.
Lauder’s son continued to wheel Karen while Lauder carried the other women and dropped her off at a nearby hotel.
In the end Lauder’s family lost two homes, but he’s extremely grateful he only lost possessions and not people.
“I might have lost my home, my things, but I didn’t lose family, I didn’t lose my job. I didn’t lose hope. So we’re still here,” he said. “Life is like a computer, there’s two buttons: There’s a reset and a power — and thank God it was just a reset button that got hit and not the power.”
Karen was transported to a hospital where she has been receiving treatment for an infection she got from the bacteria-infested water.
There are so many stories like this that we have yet to hear about. So many people have gone to incredible lengths to save not only their loved ones but strangers in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Please share this story to honor these heroes.
